Bought album this recently after learning that it has a very young Steve Hillage on guitar. Thus as a long time admirer of Steve’s work, I deemed it a “must purchase”.
Arzachel was released way back in 1969. It is the sole and eponymous offering from the band and it has something of a convoluted history behind it. Let me try to explain…..
Back in the 1960s, the young Hillage was at school with Mont Campbell (bass) and Dave Stewart (organ). The three of them got the band together, recruited drummer Clive Brooks and mooched about under the name of Uriel.
Hillage left for university around 1968 and Campbell, Stewart and Brooks carried on changing their name to Egg in 1969, being signed by Decca and getting involved in the emerging “Canterbury Scene” thing along with the likes of Caravan and similar.
All the trippy, hippy branch of prog rock which has mostly passed me by over the years with a few exceptions.
Now, Uriel were more heavy bluesy psychedelic in style. Egg (or Uriel, take your pick) were approached by a small label to record an album under the Uriel name and Hillage returned for it.
The slight issue being that as Egg were under contract to Decca it would be a bit of a legal minefield. The solution being that they called themselves Arzachel (apparently a crater on the moon named after a Spanish astronomer from medieval times) and were listed with assumed names – for example Hillage was Simon Sasparella (yes, really).
Convoluted history indeed.
The album was recorded on the cheap in a single session and as far as I know it pretty much sunk without trace.
However, it is a remarkable slab of turn of the 1970s heavy, bluesy, full on psychedelic, spaceyness. It is raw given the single session though that adds to the charm for me and considering how young the musicians were.
Hillage already showing what a talented guitarist he is. Throwing out the heavy, fuzzy riffs and the origins of his trademark fluid trippy runs he’d go in to develop during his time with Gong.
Glorious. Clive Brooks is huge on the drums, stonking, throbbing bass from Campbell and all sorts of weird and sometimes frightening organ sounds from Stewart.
Garden of Earthy Delights starts it off with a storming psych number continued by Azatheth. Soul Thing follows as an infectious, hypnotic instrumental.
Next up is Leg. Starts off with the trippy organ and fiddly guitar then breaks out in to a monstrously heavy song of full on proggy, trippy blues with enormous power. Have a listen.
Clean Innocent Fun and Metempsychosis are around ten minutes and seventeen minutes long. The former a rollocking, rambling trip and the latter an an extended instrumental jam session during which the four of them contrive to come up with a range of sounds which at times are quite scary.
If you think along the lines of a mixture of period Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, ELP, Gong and say King Crimson plus a bit of Cream you’ll surely like this one-off Arzachel album.
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